March 11, 2023
Alina (0:00:33):
Namaste. Good evening everyone. Namaste, Sraddhalu.
Sraddhalu (0:00:39):
Namaste. Happy to be with all of you.
Alina (0:00:42):
We are happy to continue Evenings with Sraddhalu. And today we have a very special evening, Sraddhalu will talk about “Developing Individuality”.
Sraddhalu (0:01:05):
I had intended for a more specific and detailed discussion on aspects of developing individuality in education, as parents, as sadhakas. But I felt it was important to put a context which was more broad, more wide, more inclusive, against which something more specific would have greater meaning.
When we look at the totality of the cosmos, we see a oneness, infinitely diverse, infinite creative potential of the one divine consciousness bursting out to play out infinite possibilities, unendingly new, unendingly fresh, never repeating. At every step, something inconceivable before now appears and becomes almost spontaneously normal and becomes the basis for a whole infinity of new possibilities. And then again a fresh wave of something inconceivable, impossible, unimaginable, emergent out of what was before and then again opening to new possibilities. And this is the nature of the unfolding play of the whole, the One, the Divine, knowledge, power, beauty, love, bliss, at the very origin of things, and therefore these things unfolding in waves after waves, always building to something more complete.
But in this play of the whole, the play is not complete because the possibility is limited to the whole which is always One. And for the completeness of the play, therefore, one has to be able to have the whole meeting the whole in innumerable ways. That's when the play would be complete. Isn't it?
But if you have the whole meeting the whole, and with innumerable possibilities, you're still missing out one possibility: something less than the whole meeting the whole; something less than the whole meeting less than the whole; something less than that meeting something less. And if all these possibilities of experience have to be played out for the full play of the delight, then necessarily the whole must represent itself in something which at least at the starting point is the least possible thing that is possible.
And then from there grow from that least to the whole but as a separate individuality within the whole. If you think of it this way, you realise why the cosmos is the way it is. The entire whole represents itself in units. Each unit is the total whole but in its journey representing the full range of possibilities from being practically nothing to becoming the entire whole but while still being within the whole.
So the larger whole becomes as if the base, the stage, for the play, and each unit becomes as if an individual actor representing the whole and possibilities of the whole and each one uniquely different possibilities, and then in the journey of the individual, the growth of the whole to its wholeness uniquely different.
(0:05:21):
And therefore, units of the whole for playing of the whole with the whole through all these individuals. Maybe we should use the word ‘the One’, but ‘the many that is the One’, or the One that is infinitely rich and diverse playing with the One that is infinitely rich and diverse in all possible ways of play.
And this is the larger picture, in which we realise, why nature, from the very beginning, is struggling to build these individual units: from the whole, which is always complete, drawing out as if what seems to be a part, which is almost nothing, infinitesimal, and then building in that, through that, around that, an individual more and more complex, more and more rich, more and more complete, approaching the full possibility of the whole. And that's the sense of the evolution. And the evolution is not complete unless it can hold the entire whole in its individuality.
So Sri Aurobindo uses this phrase: “All ocean” held in a “wandering drop”. Each individual, each one of us thus in our journey is really growing towards That or rather unknown to us, nature is pushing us as if to grow towards That, as much as she can do, because she can't do it all. And you cannot play the full game until you become a representation of the whole although individual and uniquely different.
And so the real game in a sense will begin when you have That, and until then it's the preparation of the game, which too is part of the game. So in a sense we could say, the journey itself has three stages:
there is the stage where you grow to come into your own as a conscious player;
there is the stage where this conscious player now opens to its greater possibilities of the fullness of the whole;
and then, there is the stage when having realised its completeness, it now begins to manifest all the possibilities waiting from its completeness, all the unexpected, the impossible, the inconceivable, the unimaginable being now created in and through and by this individual.
So three stages of growth. Of these three, the first one is what we will first concentrate upon and then touch upon the other two. Because this is where we are currently. We have not yet really found ourselves. We are just at the point where we realise that there is something to be found.
So, looking at Nature you understand why Nature is always struggling to build these individual units beginning with the atom, through the single cell, through individual forms, plants, animals, humans and greater variations of humanity, various kinds. And on each of these levels, whatever she is able to build, to open out from there to the full richness of possibilities, of powers, of experiences, of perceptions, sensations, expression of capacities relevant to that level.
The slower the evolution, the more rich and diverse. And so Nature is not in a hurry. She is enjoying the richness and diversity. At some point as we begin to come into our own through that slow process of nature, we say, ‘oh we can actually speed up’.
And what we are is, waiting for us is, so much more wonderful that we are willing to forego some of the richness for now to gain to that, to find ourselves first, and then build the richness from that around that, which will be perhaps even more wonderful than what Nature could do now. And therefore the need to speed up, and the attempt to speed up, and the means, the capacity, the knowledge, the method, the concentrated process of what we call ‘the Yoga’ and ‘the Integral Yoga’ because it aims at this integral perfection.
(0:10:10):
When we look at this working of Nature, she is really trying to build the whole in an individual. And so when we also participate in this creation or the formation of the individual and its full capacity, our aim also is to be as complete as possible or as complete a representation of the whole as possible. In this we discover, there are in fact two parallel processes ongoing:
There is the process of nature which she has been building, where she builds a form. And then through that form, creates possibilities. And then the form changes and grows, and again possibilities, and the form grows. But we see that we are not the form, we inhabit the form. And it's a practical experience we all have at least at some stage in our lives that we are not the body, we are inhabiting a body, at least with age when the body stops doing what you want it to do, you are forced to recognise that you and what you want is quite different from the thing itself.
And so you ask: What is this that ‘I am’? And through that introspection we discover that we are actually through many layers of nature, something deeper which is not nature. And we will give it a name, we will say ‘soul’, centre of consciousness, which can identify with nature but is not nature. And we come to that some, through an introspective process, even a kind of a mental individuality of some kind where we realise: Well, we are not this.
But are we That even? And then we can go still deeper. We all know where that leads us to, to that thing which we have called “the psychic being”, the true soul. And it is not the mind, at best it reflects in the mind or it reflects in the emotions or in the body. But we are not aware of that as it is. Even through a process of introspection, we come close to its influence, but we do not normally know it. And yet, just as this surface personality has been growing by nature's process, this person who inhabits the personality, the true person, the psychic being, also has been growing. But its growth is somewhat independent of nature, in the sense that nature can only work on its machinery, that is, your biology, your emotional, vital energies, mind.
But Nature cannot directly touch the psychic being. Nature can throw experiences from which the psychic being can draw nourishment and growth. The psychic being similarly, at least in the beginning, cannot directly act upon nature, can only put suggestions, can only show a preference, and nature may or may not accept to follow that preference. So at first there is a relationship which is somewhat dependent, that is, we are more of a witness, we are conscious of what's happening, watching a cinema, hypnotised by the cinema, even forgetting that it's a cinema because nature makes it so interesting.
But as the psychic consciousness grows more individualised, more mature, it begins to choose a preference: Mmhm this cinema I have seen, I would like that variation. And just the fact that it places an interest, in a short while nature begins to change the game to align to the interest of the psychic being.
Because in fact the psychic being is secretly the Self, and nature is secretly creative power of the Self. And therefore the preference of the psychic being is really aligned to the preference of the Self which always reflects in nature. So there is a period in which there is this choice being made, and then the choice begins to become a point of greater and greater direct selection: more of this; less of that; how about changing in this way; and then how about exercising my influence to tilt this, modify that, build that.
So as if through the journey of the evolution of the psychic being, as nature builds the outer personality and machinery through which the psychic being experiences the world and engages with the world, engages with other psychic beings, engages with the whole, a capacity to act and intervene and even influence and modify, mould nature is being built.
(0:15:44):
In a sense we can say, the maturity of the psychic being is in proportion to its awakening to its own freedom but also awakening to its power to exercise its freedom and then developing the skills of its powers to exercise.
So we see two very distinct lines of evolution, we may even use this phrase ‘a double staircase rising’: The true soul, inmost soul's evolution, which is the psychic being, coming into its own and growing in mastery over its own nature. And the other which was largely the dominant theme from the beginning was nature pushing, building forms, organising vehicles, in which the psychic individual could settle, experience and grow.
So, from a certain point of view, Nature is creating the circumstances to assist the psychic being's growth, but indirectly. And what she builds through these forms may or may not have a direct participation of the psychic being. For example, Nature could build a very complex reasoning individual, and the psychic being in its influence could be minimal, very unevolved or incapable or immature in its capacity.
Or it's possible that the psychic being takes a vehicle which is not sufficiently developed, but its capacity is great, and then it must exercise its own effort to assist the forward evolution of the vehicle, helping nature, or even accelerating beyond nature's capacity. And so we begin to see something very interesting. Nature has a certain capacity and a certain intention she builds, the psychic being helped by that grows, but at some point as it comes into greater mastery, can take charge of its nature's evolution.
Most of us, not yet being conscious of our psychic being, have some intermediate poise in the mind or in the heart's devotion or aspiration, reflected from the psychic being, where we ask for, aspire for, or make efforts to develop something of our capacity. The same in-between can also turn to say: ‘I want to grow conscious of my true ‘I’, true person’. So this in-between poise is what we are, which has: can turn outward, can turn inward, or
even become a bridge between the two.
Remember, Nature is trying to build an individuality, but an individuality which can be a true representative of the whole. The psychic being similarly, being a part of the Self entered into this evolution, has behind it backing the full potential of the Self, the same creative power that builds the universe is at the back supporting it and potentially therefore capable of acting through it as it grows more mature.
In between is this ‘I’, who is largely a product of nature's play, but also sufficiently organised that it can reflect this psychic being's aspiration, intention, not always fully conscious, and that's where we are, all of us who seek, who are drawn to a conscious spiritual evolution, a conscious turn to familiarity, closeness, intimacy with the Divine. The urge, the impulse comes from the psychic being always, reflects in the heart, in the emotions, even if the body is conscious, it could reflect in the body's consciousness, but it is by reflection that this thing within us awakes and we say, ‘ah-yes’.
(0:20:19):
If we have a strong habit of an outward turn, we do not even know that it comes from within us, and we try very hard to develop the capacities in circumstances externally with the limited capacity that we have, and quite a large part of the refined humanity and even I will use the word ‘aspiring humanity’ is bound in this.
We meet people who actually have a strong aspiration, which in its essence is even a spiritual aspiration, but the whole turn of personality is so strongly outward that you see their spiritual potential, you see their spiritual call, you see the spirituality which is so awake, and yet it is limited, bound as if trapped in this formation which is externally turned. And there is a struggle for the psychic being to literally force this personality to break out of its narrowness and its exaggerated external turn.
So much of modern education is only building this and therefore so harmful to the psychic being and its need. But we understand, and it's important to understand this to be able to make the corrections. But occasionally and especially if there has been sufficient support from childhood or in later life through an awakening spontaneously from the psychic influence pushing forward or sometimes an external touch or a contact with a writing which inspires, you become conscious, ‘Oh–yes, there is this’, and that the real journey is an inward awakening, then we begin to make that effort.
Still at first, and we see this so much in our own communities, spiritual communities, that the inward turn is much more like an idea than a real living experience or practice. Occasionally it comes in sparks, occasionally it comes in some deep influence felt momentarily and then it passes, and for quite a large part of humanity, even that which is turned to a spiritual aspiration, that is good enough.
But if the inner call is strong, eventually one exhausts the external satisfactions and the inner turn begins to become more urgent, the real inner growth becomes a deep need, a necessity, a compulsion. And sometimes it happens too late in life and we find the machinery of our biology does not sustain. And therefore the sooner it can come, the better for us and for the opportunity of building in that possibility.
But we may help greatly by reversing this wrong influence of the outer education, by consciously turning within, in a quiet aspiration to feel, to know, to remain in immersion with the divine Presence which is within us. You can do this because you already have an experience of it. If you did not have an experience of it, you would not be called to this aspiration and to this spiritual life. If you are here listening to this, then you already have a very strong spiritual aspiration which has been working behind the scenes and then perhaps even has come to the forefront but has not yet got a sufficient hold, perhaps, that this becomes your greatest priority.
And that is why a regular, conscious inward turn is necessary to reverse, to undo the wrong effects of the outward-turning education and habit of our nature. It can begin with a very short concentration every day, but put it in your routine. If it can be just a minute, it is already a good start.
If possible, find a time in the beginning of the day or at the end of the day or sometime when you do not have too much distracting you and turn to become conscious of the deep call and aspiration within you. And if you don't know what it is, simply become conscious of the part deep within you that feels close to the Divine, close to the Divine Mother, that feels love for the Divine Mother, perhaps that feels even a deep intimacy and closeness with the Divine Presence or the Divine Mother.
(0:25:54):
If that was not there, we would not be called to the spiritual life. So, if you are called, it is there. It may be felt occasionally, it may be felt weakly, but it is by turning to it that it will grow strong and more frequent and more complete until it becomes constant.
The mistake is to wait for it to come forward, that takes time, because it has to work against your lack of participation. By turning to it regularly, every day, if possible more than once, however briefly, simply the fact that you turn your awareness to it creates as if a fine link in consciousness. And over a few days, weeks, months, that link renewed begins to become wider, clearer, stronger, deeper, until the influence, the contact, both ways, the influence from within coming out, the contact from outside going in, begins to become more direct, more complete, more intimate, more constant, more widely felt in all the parts of your nature and even your activities of the day, just this turning to become conscious and aligned to that.
And with this the conscious evolution of the psychic being can now act upon the outer nature and assist in its conscious evolution. The double stair of evolution, nature evolution and soul evolution, now begin to join. The magic of this joining is that now your evolution of both can enormously accelerate. What normally might take 10 lives to develop with very little effort can be done in a single lifetime. With some effort, and I do not exaggerate, the work of a hundred lifetimes can be realised in a single lifetime. With more effort, much more.
And I do not exaggerate in this, because if one only looks at how much actual growth takes place in a normal lifetime, you see how little it is, and then how rapidly one can grow when there is this conscious alignment, it's obvious.
I remember reading from the diary notes of my teacher, M.P. Pandit. He writes there, on a particular day, the Mother says to him that she is very happy to see his progress, that in the last week or two he has grown the equivalent of several lifetimes. This is the magic when this contact begins to grow between you, this person, who is in-between, often a formation of the mind, heart, emotions, and the true person that is within and its influence.
This is what Sri Aurobindo refers to when he says, in Savitri, “Always” is hid within us the “magic key”. I am paraphrasing. The “magic key” is that presence within you, which is truly you, but which also has within it the capacity to act on the rest of you and do what nature is unable to do. And so, this joining of the double stair of our evolution is a capital step in our spiritual life. It doesn't happen just like that, it happens gradually. But the more it joins, the more rapidly things begin to be. We recognise then that while nature was building this outer form, the inner psychic personality, the psychic being, was also growing across lives, largely dependent on nature.
(0:30:40):
But in what way was it growing? We become conscious of what our psychic being brings into this life: the tendencies; the qualities; powers; even very specific capacities, aspiration, familiarities; even sometimes a spontaneous lived knowledge, and I will use the word ‘intuitive’ because you feel it, you know it, and you become it spontaneously, just in that influence. We realise that these are things which were developed before and these now begin to infuse into the outer personality more and more directly. And we realise then the true nature of its evolution.
So now when you look at the two, and it's important to understand the difference: Nature's evolution largely was seen, most obviously in the change of form. Let's say in the case of the human as our current science assumes, speculates, that out of the ape some specialised species through a series of rapid changes some early human type emerges, from that a series of changes, and another more refined thinking human type emerges, and so on.
We see that in the form and with the form a certain capacity in the brain or in the capacity of the brain to organise, and so on. But in fact behind that, even in nature's evolution, there is an evolution taking place not in the gross physical form but in the life-energy's form and the mind-consciousness form. So from the Yoga-knowledge we will say, the vital body and the mental body, these also evolve in the same way as the external biological body evolves. But those can evolve much faster because more plastic, more easy to shape, and yet because the evolution is still unconscious, pushed by nature, it takes more time than it needs to, although still that is faster than this biology.
So as far as the human being is concerned, nature made an effort to individualise the biology sufficiently that upon that plastic base she can build the others more rapidly and no more dependent on needing to change the biology. But still it's an individualisation which is a kind of a specialisation. That specialisation must eventually open to the whole and the capacities and powers of the whole. And so Nature has that in plan. She is trying to build as broad a base as possible and then on the psychological levels again opening out. Unfortunately the vehicle as it is, is not sufficiently plastic.
Therefore what she does is she builds specialised types, races, civilisations, cultures in pockets of civilisations or in entire civilisations, specialised areas on earth where certain things are built, capacities developed, psychological but with a necessary biological basis. And then when those have been pushed to the maximum extreme of specialisations of various types which are easier to build for her than to build a complex development, she pushes those, when those are taken to their maximum, she suddenly brings them together and mixes them to create this very sudden rich diverse basis.
And it's interesting, the Mother observes, that phase has happened, let's say now, we will say, in the last hundred years about, where you see suddenly the boundaries, barriers between races, cultures, civilisations, different types of human beings, types of mind, have suddenly opened up and the urge of nature within us is as if to cross boundaries and draw the best from all to enrich ourselves while originally growing within our type but opening out to as rich, as diverse, as wide an experience and capacity as possible.
(0:35:25):
So quite a large part of this is still taking place in our vital and mental bodies which are more plastic, more open but with a biological base that is now capable of supporting a greater wideness, richness. But still within this, something is missing. And the thing missing is, first of all Nature's own capacity which is somewhat limited but the sense of something that unifies, integrates these diverse powers and capacities. Because the more diverse we become, the more diverse the range of powers or richness of consciousness, the more also the pulls and pushes which are contrary within us.
A very simple-minded, narrow base of individuality leads a simple life with simple problems. A rich, complex, diverse personality now finds itself pulled in many different directions and struggling to unify and align these different needs, aspirations, impulses, capacities, even demands of different parts of his nature, because each part wants to fulfil itself to its full potential. How do you prioritise? How do you integrate, given the limited amount of time and energy and capacity that you have? And so, the missing element is this unifying centre. And therefore, the more rich and diverse the personality, the more complex may be its problems also. Isn't it?
And this is where the place of the psychic being and its influence becomes so important. It's almost as if nature reaches the maximum of what it is able to do and needs this central principle that unifies the personality. On the other hand, from this point of view of the psychic being, the evolution also has been growing to build its capacity, and what we already discussed earlier, initially somewhat helpless because not so capable of influencing its nature, somewhat helpless because it’s the nature through which it acts is also so narrow and so limited.
Even if you had developed the powers of the intelligence, you cannot act through the monkey brain, for example, because the brain is unable to contain or express. And so, the psychic being also waiting or as if nudging, pushing nature to build the vehicle more suitable for its evolution, also itself evolves with the growing experiences provided by nature and builds its own capacity to influence, to shape, to modify. And the more evolved the psychic being, the more it is able to infuse itself into these gradations of personality. And this is where we need to understand the nature of this psychic evolution.
Every time that you develop a skill, a capacity, there is a growth in the quality, subtlety, richness in the machinery: let's start with the brain, then the physical brain, interconnections between neurons which build up connections and a complex harmony between them, holding that capacity, let's say, coordinating and expressing, organising; in the vital body, an equivalent fine mesh of energetic rhythms, ripples; in the mind, similarly, the mental body, a fine formation of skill, capacity, idea-form, which plugs into the energy bundle, which plugs into the biological harmony and can act now through the body smoothly.
Take a simple skill of your fingers to play a musical instrument, to draw beautifully, accurately, what the mind conceives. You conceive of a perfect circle, your finger can draw a perfect circle. Well, most of us cannot, but those who can, you see immediately how well the link from mind all the way down to biology has been formed, an integration across layers, but also within each layer an organisation of that. The artistic visual, the perception, can see, conceive of, the fullness of the art, not necessarily in a picture, but in the feel of it, depending on the level, higher vital, mental.
And meanwhile, the psychic being which is drawing on this experience is also participating in this or drawing from it in a very fine grade of substance of the psychic material, which if this development and refinement has been done in alignment with the psychic aspiration, actually nourishes and is held in this very fine grade of substance of the psychic being's evolution. It does not happen for everything.
(0:40:56):
It happens only when that formation and evolution on the surface is aligned to the psychic in vibration, in aspiration. When does that happen? As an example, if in the surface personality, the artist now, begins to draw with great force perhaps, with great power of his art, of vital energy perhaps, conceptual power, perfection of execution, but a quality of expression which is crude, coarse, even violent to the psychic being, its influence would withdraw, because contrary to its aspiration.
But if on the other hand, the same art, with the same power, with the same force and subtlety and precision is turned to something which aligns with the psychic aspiration and becomes now a vehicle for a Godward turn or a higher expression to materialise a higher truth or inspiration, the psychic being yearns to participate and something of its consciousness infuses, shaping, helping, lifting, assisting this process.
So from within infusing to lift, psychesise, but also internally developing its own refined grade of what may be described as a fine mesh of the psychic substance filling the mind-vital-physical in that movement of the art. This then, because it is held in the psychic substance in that fine grade, is actually now a part of your true inmost personality.
And Sri Aurobindo uses this vocabulary of “psychic personality” to describe all that has been built up across lives in this way, in the capacity of the psychic being, in this fine mesh of its personality that it has built up. Every life that we have been through, in the moments in which there has been the psychic influence strongly felt, or when the outer personality was aligned to the psychic aspiration, there has been something of this contact and something received and built and held in this psychic personality of that, external growth.
At the time when the physical body is shed, which we all seem to have to do, in the current limited capacity of our physical-biological evolution, when the biology is shed, whatever is not held in this fine grade of the psychic personality drops off. Or later in the passage further, whatever is held in the vital body and the mental body which is not aligned to this fine grade of the psychic personality drops off and dissolves at its successive gradations.
Only what has been infused and aligned with this fine psychic personality substance is absorbed into the psychic being as the overall imprint of growth and evolution of that life held, integrated, assimilated, and out of that a new turn of nature drawn out, of the “psychic nature” we will say, drawn out for a specific need to grow in this or to express that or to experience, and with this when it turns to take birth, it brings forward certain aspects of its personality. Depending on how rich it is, it may not bring everything forward, holding back what is not necessary for this purpose, drawing out and amplifying, projecting what is necessary and then infusing this into the new personality. To the extent that the personality has a sufficient receptivity, refinement, consciousness, this influence of the psychic personality can fully infuse, and it's as if for that part of the consciousness you continue where you left off in evolution.
(0:45:23):
Now in the most external part, there will be some element of the skill being rebuilt, but it would come almost natural as if ‘I remember having done it, it’s just something I have forgotten but which I once knew’, and it comes up spontaneously.
Let's say, it was in the art a capacity built earlier, in another lifetime a power of the intellect built, in another lifetime a heroic, courageous action developed, and then in this lifetime, something of all these brought forward to be integrated. And suddenly this child finds there is a spontaneous skill of the art, there is a spontaneous power of the intelligence to think and articulate in certain ways. You are still learning the languages, you are still exercising the skill to perfect and refine it, but it happens quickly, it happens naturally as if it was always a part of you, you were familiar with it. Because this content of the psychic personality was infused into the new material that has been gathered to form the current personality.
If the material gathered is crude or coarse, let's say the biology for example inherited largely does not have the sufficient refinement, maybe the psychic being chose that body for a certain quality or for a certain character of that environment or of the parents or someone in the family or it chose it for its strength but allows the compromise for the sensitivity perhaps, refinement, still the psychic infusing this fine grade of psychic personality can begin as if to recast, reshape this gradation which is less sensitive, infuse into it a higher sensitivity and raise it or rather rapidly accelerate its refinement in this life.
It may again involve a few years of work, but still the fact that it is already there, acquired, built, developed, allows this to happen more rapidly which in the normal evolution might require a few generations to build. And so occasionally you find in a family with the same genetic pool, suddenly a dramatically different character of consciousness, of refinement, of sensitivity, and it feels as if, ‘Where did this come from?’, because the psychic being can infuse all these things and even shape the body in its formation from the foetal stage onwards.
All this is to highlight the nature of the psychic evolution and the evolution of the psychic personality and the critical role that it plays in influencing the outer personality and shaping and aligning it to its overall sense of the journey and purpose. And so the more awake and conscious the psychic being, the more mature, the more it is able to infuse this and shape and build and lead even the outer personality.
But still it may happen, because of a very strong, hard turn of education, environmental influences and maybe a strong personality that the personality is rebellious or insensitive or exaggerated in its outward turn, then one would feel all these influences filling it, but it will also find something that is not choosing to align to the psychic aspiration, that chooses a passage which is rebellious. And often this tends to create a sharp conflict between these two layers. In the extreme, we know of cases where people fall sick because the psychic aspiration and the turn of personality and nature are not aligned. And repeatedly the surface personality tends to fall sick. It recovers from the sickness when there is the alignment of the psychic influence. When it falls out of alignment, it becomes sick again, and we see this until the person wakes up sufficiently and makes that effort to fully align.
Or when there is a very strong revolt or turn, the psychic personality unable to exercise either holds, waits or holds a persistent influence, waiting for the outer personality to be drawn back, to be brought back in alignment.
(0:50:13):
If it is sufficiently developed, if the power of the Self behind backing the psychic being makes a decision that ‘Enough of this’, it can put a very strong influence on the whole personality and pull it together tightly, and these disparate tendencies of the surface nature are suddenly pulled and the person as if wakes up into ‘Oh what am I doing?’. Or it may allow time for that, because it waits for something to develop, something to emerge, or just enjoys that experience for a while and says, ‘All right, this is also interesting, I'm learning and growing in a different way’ and then one day says ‘Enough now’, and foop, it pulls, and something changes the whole personality as if threads of a marionette which is limp and disparate are pulled and the whole thing comes up into its own rapidly.
This too we know, we see that happening. But this is to understand the complex dynamics between these layers and especially the critical role that the psychic being, psychic personality, with the backing of the Self can play in the outer nature and its development, when these two align more and more. This then is where we are today, most of us who would find something like this interesting, most of us who feel a strong turn to the spiritual.
This part which feels the turn is somewhere in between, it needs to align, but the psychic influence is strong behind. There has been the question also of what happens if the education has been damaging in some way. We will be discussing this later, but this will set a backdrop for it. The one thing that can bring back harmony and alignment in any disrupted part, in any misaligned part, in any distortion in the outer personality, is the strong influence of the psychic being or the Self.
When that influence comes in, it automatically sets in alignment. Remember, all distortions fundamentally or all problems, mistakes, perversions are really things which were straight, which have got warped. What is straight? The psychic influence within. And when that influence fills, the warping is automatically straightened out. As long as there is a strong spiritual centre, a strong spiritual aspiration, or a strong inner influence, or from the outer personality a strong turn inward, all these problems can be set right. To the extent that we do it with the sincerity and a plasticity of self-giving, it can be set right very rapidly, again, relative to what the circumstances are. How and what we can do for that will be a discussion another day, but this sets the context for it.
So in a sense, the “magic key” is this psychic presence, and as this now infuses with the psychic personality into the outer personality, the evolution of these two begins to join more and more. Comes now something extremely important, because the evolution eventually has to be able to represent all of the planes of consciousness from the most physical biology to the highest supramental and the Sachchidananda, here. Isn't it?
So when these highest gradations above the mind, intuition and above, begin to be incarnated, infused, and begin to then take up and reshape this substance, the psychic being is actually evolving through the planes of consciousness. Let's say in our being, the psychic being has come to the level of the mental evolution. But as we open to higher ranges, it is in the psychic being, finally, that the fine grade of substance is held of the evolutionary gradations, assisting, supporting the external evolution in the substance here, in our outer nature. But it is there that the bulk of this is held and therefore transfers into the next life in some way, in this fine grade of the psychic personality. But still the question will be: What happens when those higher gradations now take up this lower material?
(0:55:11):
And Sri Aurobindo and the Mother speak of an eventual entire transformation top-down all the way to the physical body itself by that highest consciousness. What would such a body be like? What would it be formed of? And the Mother found this very interesting insight, she said, she was shown, she saw, that increasingly in this merging of the psychic substance infusion into the outer nature, that will begin to fill, take over, and densify into the gradation of the outer material, and as if becoming more and more materialised, would become this supramental body itself.
And that's when you see the full unification of the two evolutionary stairs, the outermost of nature and the innermost of soul, and when joining, the soul substance itself reaching the density of materiality, now replacing inside-out the material into its divine substantiality. Such would be the nature of the supramental body when that is materialised, incarnated.
And here we find the whole, including all the planes and all possibilities of infinity, brought into a single individualised, substantial body, physical form, with all the gradations and planes of consciousness now incarnated in a single being, and that's when you can say, it is “All ocean held” in “a wandering drop” now playing its full role as a conscious divine participant and creator.
And each one of us thus awakening into this, we have the collective, which would be the divine collective, manifesting, incarnating in a collective consciousness possibilities which today are inconceivable, unimaginable. Ecstasies of divine bliss and beauty and perfection and harmonies, which today we can only glimpse in the highest worlds, and they are so beautiful, so overwhelming, and all those would be incarnated in form, in substantiality of matter in a supramental body, expressed, realised, manifested here.
Well, it goes beyond our current capacity of imagination but yet it resonates deep within us as something which says ‘Yes, of course, it must be so, it is so’, because already somewhere inside, in our deeper ranges, the reality, the truth of it, is known and held and therefore inevitable and certain in our evolution. Isn't it?
What then can we do to assist in this evolution, with this full picture, with this full deeper understanding, and the nature of the individuality which is intended to be realised? So much of our current modern education is really centred on just the surface layer of the nature personality. So much of it is even just on the surface part of it, the biologically based component of it, not even the deeper ranges of the inner mind or the inner vital or the inner physical which are 90% at least of our mind, vital and physical which is seen on the surface.
So really the current education is so superficial and out of that superficiality just the layers closest to the most physical, because they are held in form and the methods used also are turning all this possibility only to that very fine grade of surface, coarsest layer, densest layer, of our personality. What can we do?
Start by turning this around. We will therefore describe this in terms of three stages again, because the evolution being in those three stages: The first stage of completing this true individuality, realigning it with the psychic, the true person, and infusing or bringing forward the psychic influence and making that the centre of our true personality. That we will call “psychic education”.
From there, the opening out from this individuality which is now, we will say a “divine individuality”, but still a limited “divine individuality”, opening it out to its largest, vastest infinity and eternity of potential, infinite capacity, that opening to the wideness of the whole would be what we may call a “spiritual education”.
(1:00:22):
And then from there, as we ascend to the highest station of consciousness in a supramentalised consciousness, and from that supramental consciousness now begin a top-down reshaping of our entire being, which may culminate in the physical transformation also, but that may take time, just beginning with the transformation of the ranges of the intuition and mind but top-down, manifesting from the supramental consciousness that we would call a “supramental education”.
So perhaps this discussion should have been titled ‘Psychic Education’ preparing for a spiritual and supramental education, but I've held it more simply more accessibly at the level of developing our true individuality. How do we do this psychic education? Well, you can all read the text of what the Mother has placed as the broad framework of this and that would be quite a good beginning in itself.
I will selectively pick a few lines or a few passages from this with regard to, and with some observations, primarily focussing on the practice for us. If we can put ourselves into the right framework of practice, its influence on the children who come under our influence would be automatic, but we would also have the necessary insight to understand what we could do to assist them in taking generally such a direction in their own growth.
So the Mother explains it this way: “The starting-point is to seek in yourself that which is independent of the body and the circumstances of life, which is not born of the mental formation that you have been given, the language you speak, the habits and customs of the environment in which you live, the country where you are born or the age to which you belong.”
Well, that’s really what you are not. So you find that which is truly yourself “independent” of all this, and it can be an introspective process. “You must find, in the depths of your being, that which carries in it a sense of universality, limitless expansion, unbroken continuity.”
The “sense of”! – It doesn’t have to be fully that! Just the “sense of” what feels like that. “Then you decentralise” and “extend and widen yourself; you begin to live in all things and in all beings; the barriers separating individuals from each other break down. You think in their thoughts, vibrate in their sensations, feel in their feelings, live in the life of all. What seemed inert suddenly becomes full of life, stones quicken, plants feel and will and suffer, animals speak in a language more or less inarticulate, but clear and expressive; everything is” manifested “by a marvellous consciousness without time or limit. And this is only one aspect of the psychic realisation; there are others, many others. All help you to go beyond the barriers of your egoism, the walls of your external personality, the impotence of your reactions and the incapacity of your will.”
So, sounds a bit too much to do. How am I going to do that? How do I even start? I don't even know how to start doing this. And yet you know somewhere deep inside: Yes of course it should be possible, but what's the starting point? And so she comes to that level also, with a few suggestions: “The first and perhaps the most important point is that the mind is incapable of judging spiritual things. … And yet, in order to proceed on the path, it is absolutely indispensable to abstain from all mental opinion and reaction.”
So here is one point you can start training upon: to stop judging. Mhhm and then what? What really gets you to that? So here she gives a series of things, and I will rapidly touch upon them. First she says:
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“Give up all personal seeking for comfort, satisfaction, enjoyment or happiness. Be only a burning fire for progress, take whatever comes to you as an aid to your progress and immediately make whatever progress is required.”
Now it does not mean that you become an ascetic and throw out enjoyment and happiness and comfort and satisfaction. What she says is: Give up all “personal seeking” for these things. That means when you say, ‘I need this without which I can't do anything else and I chase after that all my life’, that's where you go off-track. So, yes, you have comfort, satisfaction, enjoyment, happiness. Great. That's not important. What is important is this “burning fire for progress” and “whatever comes to you”, even if it's uncomfortable, you make that as an occasion “immediately” for some progress. That's the point of it. You stop seeking after something which would involve then escaping if there was some discomfort. You say, ‘All right, out of this I will make the progress’. So you see here, the highlight is more on the attempt to make progress from anything that comes to you.
Then she says: “Try to take pleasure in all you do, but never do anything for the sake of pleasure.” Interesting. And then: “Never get excited, nervous or agitated. Remain perfectly calm in the face of all circumstances. And yet be always alert to discover what progress you still have to make and lose no time in making it.” –So when you are calm, you are able to actually do what is needed for the progress. When you get agitated and nervous, you lose that, because you get swayed by the circumstances.
Then she says: “Never take physical happenings at their face value. They are always a clumsy attempt to express something else, the true thing which escapes our superficial understanding.” Then next: “Never complain of the behaviour of anyone, unless you have the power to change in his nature what makes him act in this way; and if you have the power, change him instead of complaining.”
Some of this may seem a little difficult, but at least if we hold that intention and make small efforts, all of these, little things she is describing, begin to reprioritise our centre from our surface ego-tendency to the values which align to the psychic. That's why these things are so helpful. Just the effort you make begins to shift this centre. And now comes the most direct part of it, and if you hold this central part of it, even the other things will follow as a consequence, so pay attention to this as the most immediate practice:
“Whatever you do, never forget the goal which you have set before you. There is nothing great or small once you have set out on this great discovery; all things are equally important and can either hasten or delay its success.”
So as a way of remembering and never forgetting the goal, she gives you a few simple exercises, so let's start with these, and I would suggest for all of us beginning now, beginning today, from this moment, to put these into practice, she says:
“Thus …” – “Thus”, because you don’t want to forget your goal. “Thus before you eat, concentrate a few seconds in the aspiration that the food you are about to eat may bring your body the substance it needs to serve as a solid basis for your effort towards the great discovery, and give it the energy for persistence and perseverance in the effort.”
So now you see what's being done. Food which was primarily a drive of your ego, greed, desire, etc., right there you give it a meaning and align it to this deepest sense of purpose and for a nourishment of the body to fulfil this purpose, and straight away the priority changes. And food, why first? Because that substance going into you becomes the substance of your body, becomes the substance of your lifeforce, even substance of your mind, at least in influence. And so putting that intention right at the beginning infuses it eventually all the way into the cells, over weeks, months, years.
Then she says, the second critical point of transition is when we go to sleep, you see, that's when we are sliding into a subconscious and then waking up from the subconscious in the habit of all the past junk that we have accumulated, so the second correction she puts there:
(1:10:36):
“Before you go to sleep, concentrate a few seconds in the aspiration that the sleep may restore your fatigued nerves, bring calm and quietness to your brain so that on waking you may, with renewed vigour, begin again your journey on the path of the great discovery.”
-Again the reminder of the sense of purpose. Yes, of course, you will go to do your job, your business, your learning, your work, your holiday, your luxury. For what? Why do you do your job? To earn money. For what? To be comfortable, to retire, to do what you want to do, to fulfil some desire. For what? If you keep asking ‘for what?’, even if you say, ‘because I want to fulfil my desire’, for what?, ‘because I want to be happy’, for what?; eventually you have come to the deeper sense of purpose, and so now instead of going through 20 steps to it, you put that right in front, so that “you may, with renewed vigour, begin again your journey on the path of the great discovery”.
And in order for this, yes, you may earn money, you may become comfortable, you may go for a holiday, you may do your job, you may retire, you may explore, all that is incidental to this purpose. By putting this purpose as your priority, all those things acquire meaning. Otherwise, look at what a typical life is, and it's sometimes so ridiculous when you think about it: ‘I will suffer in a job that I hate doing and struggle every day and drive my body to collapse in order to earn enough money that later I may be able to retire and be comfortable and then do the thing which I want to do, by which time I have forgotten what it is I wanted to do, or I can't do it anymore’.
But if you start doing what you want to do, at its most essential, you can do it in the midst of any activity, any work, any circumstance, and those things which you hate to do now suddenly become a means for doing that which you really want to do, one of the means, maybe not the best means, but you have other means you can also apply at the same time. And all of your life begins to acquire a deeper, more purposeful and meaningful and deeply satisfying sense. And at some point perhaps there will be enough clarity that you may make a radical change also in the priority of the form of your job or work or circumstance to better align it to this deeper sense and thereby accelerate even its fulfilment.
But we come back to the practice. So she has spoken of food and then sleep. Then third:
“Before you act, concentrate in the will that your action may help or at least in no way hinder your march forward towards the great discovery.”
Why does this become so important? Because every action has a chain of consequence which either bring you closer or take you farther from your deeper sense. And so, now you are putting every action in reference to this.
Reread these lines on your own, internalise bit by bit perhaps rereading every few days, and put these into practice, and you will find your life begins to change, your sense of priorities, purpose, and all that changing a deep sense of satisfaction begins to fill, because the psychic being now says ‘Ah at last’ and it begins to bring forward its support.
But it's not over. A few more points:
“When you speak, before the words come out of your mouth, concentrate just long enough to check your words and allow only those that are absolutely necessary to pass, only those that are not in any way harmful to your progress on the path of the great discovery.”
“To sum up, never forget the purpose and goal of your life. The will for the great discovery should be always there above you, above what you do and what you are, like a huge bird of light dominating all the movements of your being.”
If you've seen the Mother's signature, it is like this gigantic divine bird, messenger, I think, she names it “The messenger of Truth”, vast, expanded wings brooding over the world literally, brooding over you, this ideal, encompassing, surrounding, infusing from above-down.
(1:15:32)
And then she says:
“Before the untiring persistence of your effort, an inner door will suddenly open and you will emerge into a dazzling splendour that will bring you the certitude of immortality, the concrete experience that you have always lived and always shall live, that external forms alone perish and that these forms are, in relation to what you are in reality, like clothes that are thrown away when worn out. Then you will stand …”
Then, you will stand “…erect, freed from all chains, and instead of advancing laboriously under the weight of circumstances imposed upon you by Nature, which you had to endure and bear if you did not want to be crushed by them, you will be able to walk on, straight and firm, conscious of your destiny, master of your life.”
You see, the balance between Soul and Nature has now changed. The soul influence comes forward, no more Nature dominating, Soul now takes charge and guides and shapes nature. But she says, this is not the highest, this is the preparation for what has to follow, what she calls “the spiritual education” that we spoke of already briefly. And just to understand the difference between this and that, she says:
“So one can say …” I skip a few lines. “So one can say that the psychic life is immortal life, endless time, limitless space, ever-progressive change, unbroken continuity in the universe of forms.”
Now you have this sense: ‘Oh-yes, I have been through all these forms and I will be through other forms but it's always ‘I’, the true ‘I’ ’.
In contrast: “The spiritual consciousness, on the other hand, means to live the infinite and the eternal, to be projected beyond all creation, beyond time and space.”
Again, she explains the difference: “To become conscious of your psychic being and to live a psychic life you must abolish all egoism; but to live a spiritual life you must no longer have an ego.”
So this is a way of understanding the distinction. Practically we may simply take the “spiritual” as the widening and completion of what is begun through the psychic education. Again I leave out the details because right now our focus is on the practice, and we begin with that which is accessible to us. And then finally she speaks also of the “supramental education”, where she says, while earlier evolution was bottom-up, now with the supramental education:
“… the supramental education will progress from above downwards, its influence spreading from one state of being to another until at last the physical is reached.” And as a result, she says:
This “… supramental education will result” in “a transformation of the nature itself, a transfiguration of the being in its entirety, a new ascent of the species above and beyond man towards superman, leading in the end to the appearance of a divine race upon earth.”
So with that I am completing the text itself of what Mother has to say about the psychic education, and we touched upon the aspect of spiritual and supramental education. But of this psychic education:
Look back at what you need to do immediately, very practically perhaps even minimally: before eating; before sleeping; before acting; before speaking. Brief pause.
Realign to your deeper sense of purpose. But that sense of deeper purpose you could start with a mental idea perhaps. Useful. But more useful, and more true, more effortless, because a living force is to feel within you what you already know deep within coming from the influence of the psychic being.
(1:20:25):
And very simply, this is done by becoming very quiet, quiet your emotions quiet your thoughts, remove all preconceptions, and become conscious of that part within you where you know and love the Divine, the Divine Mother, and you have the deep aspiration and thirst to be in immersion, in closeness, in the joy, and perhaps you already feel you know them intimately.
Hold that. Enter into that. Immerse into that. Stay in that. Without words, without ideas, in a kind of an intuitive knowing: ‘You know, this is the sense of purpose of your life’. ‘This’ includes everything, all the progress that needs to be made, all the possibilities that you have to develop and grow, because they are held in that immersion as a potential. Hold this as a minimum.
And each of the four things we saw, before sleeping – before eating, before sleeping, before action, before speaking: align yourself to this presence or this connection with the Divine, this love for the Divine Mother, this immersion of contact with the Presence, in whatever way you feel it, simply put it in relation to this, and implied in that is this sense of purpose of life and the progress to be made, without words, without mental ideas, without construction of any kind.
Hold this immersion. Hold this alignment. Hold this closeness. And the deep, soft, melting love and deep satisfaction that you have in this joy, satisfaction that you have in this- hold that. And you already feel in it the fulfilment of your life, the fulfilment of your existence in that deep joy. And so from there when you engage with these works, with these activities, with these actions, it comes with already knowing the sense of purpose without any construction. And when something is misaligned externally, you feel it in misalignment. It feels wrong, it feels odd, it feels not resonating, like a discord of music.
And then you pay attention, ‘Hha’, and bring it back in alignment until it stays, feels right. And then you know, it's the right thing. And you speak, you act, you sleep, or eat, whatever form it may be. You make decisions in life with that reference.
Very quickly, many things will change, your priorities will change, many friendships will change, many actions. That will happen, we don't have to worry about it. Because you hold something which is already naturally true, which is you.
In terms of the most external choices you may have to make, observe simply what represents or what in what way it aligns, it resonates with the psychic influence within you, what nourishes it, what expresses it, what contradicts it. And the decision you have to make will be obvious, you won't have to struggle, you won't have to try, you won't struggle with, ‘I want this but I can't do it’, because it feels ‘you’, and ‘not you’; it's ‘aligned’, ‘misaligned’. When it's misaligned, well, you can't do it. When it is aligned, you naturally flow effortlessly.
So spend some time every day, even if for a few minutes, becoming very quiet and turning to this deep part within you which we may call ‘the closest within your personality’ where the psychic influence is felt. And over time in the deepening of this, you will find yourself approaching the psychic influence, and the psychic source and presence within you will come forward and join until there will be a contact, ‘a real, direct, contact’, gradually perhaps, and then maybe suddenly a full emergence of it. But just this small step every day will begin in your life a real, living, presence, and truth, which will bring meaning and joy to everything you do.
(1:25:17):
It is a very important statement Sri Aurobindo makes to one of the sadhakas, he says: it is the divine presence in life which gives you joy. Find this presence in yourself and you will find that. That missing, life becomes empty, meaningless, purposeless, boring, tiring, exhausting, depleting.
And so, the fact that you make that brief alignment at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day begins to change everything. This is the true individual. Aligning yourself in this, around this, is accelerating, developing the true individuality within us. And as we saw before, many years of work can be accelerated and concentrated into a few years, into a few months perhaps, depending on the kind of concentration and time that we are willing to give to this.
I think I will pause at this point. There are many questions in the chat box relating to this, and we could take them up next time where we will also look at certain aspects of how we can assist a child in developing the individuality; and the transition from a state of dependence with the parent and teacher to the practical individuality and coming into form; and how such an alignment can be perhaps nourished from early childhood so that they don't have to struggle the way we had to, in losing ourselves and then rediscovering ourselves.
We can take a moment to concentrate on this aspiration. And if possible, make a determination to put into practice these things every day. Reread on your own the text of the psychic and spiritual education that the Mother has written, spoken of. Reuse it for building this inspiration and aligning yourself to these priorities.
<silence>
Namaste.
Alina (1:28:06):
Namaste.